THE TESTAMENT.
When Gabriel, Rodin, and Father d'Aigrigny entered the Red Room, they
were differently affected. Gabriel, pale and sad, felt a kind of painful
impatience. He was anxious to quit this house, though he had already
relieved himself of a great weight, by executing before the notary,
secured by every legal formality, a deed making over all his rights of
inheritance to Father d'Aigrigny. Until now it had not occurred to the
young priest, that in bestowing the care upon him, which he was about to
reward so generously, and in forcing his vocation by a sacrilegious
falsehood, the only object of Father d'Aigrigny might have been to secure
the success of a dark intrigue. In acting as he did, Gabriel was not
yielding, in his view of the question, to a sentiment of exaggerated
delicacy. He had made this donation freely, many years before. He would
have looked upon it as infamy now to withdraw it. It was hard enough to
be suspected of cowardice: for nothing in the world would he have
incurred the least reproach of cupidity.
The missionary must have been endowed with a very rare and excellent
nature, or this flower of scrupulous probity would have withered beneath
the deleterious and demoralizing influence of his education; but happily,
as cold sometimes preserves from corruption, the icy atmosphere in which
he had passed a portion of his childhood and youth had benumbed, but not
vitiated, his generous qualities, which had indeed soon revived in the
warm air of liberty. Father d'Aigrigny, much paler and more agitated than
Gabriel, strove to excuse and explain his anxiety by attributing it to
the sorrow he experienced at the rupture of his dear son with the Order.
Rodin, calm, and perfectly master of himself, saw with secret rage the
strong emotion of Father d'Aigrigny, which might have inspired a man less
confiding than Gabriel with strange suspicions. Yet, notwithstanding his
apparent indifference, the socius was perhaps still more ardently
impatient than his superior for the success of this important affair.
Samuel appeared quite desponding, no other heir but Gabriel having
presented himself. No doubt the old man felt a lively sympathy for the
young priest; but then he was a priest, and with him would finish the
line of Rennepont; and this immense fortune, accumulated with so much
labor, would either be again distributed, or employed otherwise than the
testator had desired. The different actors in this scene were standing
around the table. As they were about to seat themselves, at the
invitation of the notary, Samuel pointed to the register bound in black
shagreen, and said: "I was ordered, sir, to deposit here this register.
It is locked. I will deliver up the key, immediately after the reading of
the will."
"This course is, in fact, directed by the note which accompanies the
will," said M. Dumesnil, "as it was deposited, in the year 1682, in the
hands of Master Thomas Le Semelier, king's counsel, and notary of the
Chatelet of Paris, then living at No. 13, Place Royale."
So saying, M. Dumesnil drew from a portfolio of red morocco a large
parchment envelope, grown yellow with time; to this envelope was annexed,
by a silken thread, a note also upon vellum.
"Gentlemen," said the notary, "if you please to sit down, I will read the
subjoined note, to regulate the formalities at the opening of the will."
The notary, Rodin, Father d'Aigrigny, and Gabriel, took seats. The young
priest, having his back turned to the fireplace, could not see the two
portraits. In spite of the notary's invitation, Samuel remained standing
behind the chair of that functionary, who read as follows:
"'On the 13th February, 1832, my will shall be carried to No. 3, in the
Rue Saint-Francois.
"'At ten o'clock precisely, the door of the Red Room shall be opened to
my heirs, who will no doubt have arrived long before at Paris, in
anticipation of this day, and will have had time to establish their line
of descent.
"'As soon as they are assembled, the will shall be read, and, at the last
stroke of noon, the inheritance shall be finally settled in favor of
those of my kindred, who according to my recommendation (preserved, I
hope, by tradition in my family, during a century and a half); shall
present themselves in person, and not by agents, before twelve o'clock,
on the 13th of February, in the Rue Saint-Francois.'"
Having read these words in a sonorous voice, the notary stopped an
instant, and resumed, in a solemn tone: "M. Gabriel Francois Marie de
Rennepont, priest, having established, by legal documents, his descent on
the father's side, and his relationship to the testator, and being at
this hour the only one of the descendants of the Rennepont family here
present, I open the testament in his presence, as it has been ordered."
So saying, the notary drew from its envelope the will, which had been
previously opened by the President of the Tribunal, with the formalities
required by law. Father d'Aigrigny leaned forward, and resting his elbow
on the table, seemed to pant for breath. Gabriel prepared himself to
listen with more curiosity than interest. Rodin was seated at some
distance from the table, with his old hat between his knees, in the
bottom of which, half hidden by the folds of a shabby blue cotton
handkerchief, he had placed his watch. The attention of the socius was
divided between the least noise from without, and the slow evolution of
the hands of the watch, which he followed with his little, wrathful eye,
as if hastening their progress, so great was his impatience for the hour
of noon.
The notary, unfolding the sheet of parchment, read what follows, in the
midst of profound attention:
Hameau de Villetaneuse,
"'February 13th, 1682.
"'I am about to escape, by death, from the disgrace of the galleys, to
which the implacable enemies of my family have caused me to be condemned
as a relapsed heretic.
"'Moreover, life is too bitter for me since the death of my son, the
victim of a mysterious crime.
"'At nineteen years of age--poor henry!--and his murderers unknown--no,
not unknown--if I may trust my presentiments.
"'To preserve my fortune for my son, I had feigned to abjure the
Protestant faith. As long as that beloved boy lived, I scrupulously kept
up Catholic appearances. The imposture revolted me, but the interest of
my son was concerned.
"'When they killed him, this deceit became insupportable to me. I was
watched, accused, and condemned as relapsed. My property has been
confiscated, and I am sentenced to the galleys.
"'Tis a terrible time we live in! Misery and servitude! sanguinary
despotism and religious intolerance! Oh, it is sweet to abandon life!
sweet to rest and see no more such evils and such sorrows!
"'In a few hours, I shall enjoy that rest. I shall die. Let me think of
those who will survive--or rather, of those who will live perhaps in
better times.
"'Out of all my fortune, there remains to me a sum of fifty thousand
crowns, deposited in a friend's hands.
"'I have no longer a son; but I have numerous relations, exiled in
various parts of Europe. This sum of fifty thousand crowns, divided
between them, would profit each of them very little. I have disposed of
it differently.
"'In this I have followed the wise counsels of a man, whom I venerate as
the image of God on earth, for his intelligence, wisdom, and goodness are
almost divine.
"'Twice in the course of my life have I seen this man, under very fatal
circumstances--twice have I owed him safety, once of the soul, once of
the body.
"'Alas! he might perhaps have saved my poor child, but he came too
late--too late.
"'Before he left me, he wished to divert me from the intention of
dying--for he knew all. But his voice was powerless. My grief, my regret,
my discouragement, were too much for him.
"'It is strange! when he was convinced of my resolution to finish my days
by violence, some words of terrible bitterness escaped him, making me
believe that he envied me--my fate--my death!
"'Is he perhaps condemned to live?
"'Yes; he has, no doubt, condemned himself to be useful to humanity, and
yet life is heavy on him, for I heard him repeat one day, with an
expression of despair and weariness that I have never forgotten: "Life!
life! who will deliver me from it?"
"'Is life then so very burdensome to him?
"'He is gone. His last words have made me look for my departure with
serenity. Thanks to him, my death shall not be without fruit.
"'Thanks to him, these lines, written at this moment by a man who, in a
few hours, will have ceased to live, may perhaps be the parents of great
things a century and a half hence--yes! great and noble things, if my
last will is piously followed by my descendants, for it is to them that I
here address myself.
"'That they may understand and appreciate this last will--which I commend
to the care of the unborn, who dwell in the future whither I am
hastening--they must know the persecutors of my family and avenge their
ancestor, but by a noble vengeance.
"'My grandfather was a Catholic. Induced by perfidious counsels rather
than religious zeal, he attached himself, though a layman, to a Society
whose power has always been terrible and mysterious--the Society of
Jesus--'"
At these words of the testament, Father d'Aigrigny, Rodin, and Gabriel
looked involuntarily at each other: The notary, who had not perceived
this action, continued to read:
"'After some years, during which he had never ceased to profess the most
absolute devotion to this Society, he was suddenly enlightened by fearful
revelations as to the secret ends it pursued, and the means it employed.
"'This was in 1510, a month before the assassination of Henry IV.
"'My grandfather, terrified at the secret of which he had become the
unwilling depositary, and which was to be fully explained by the death of
the best of kings, not only broke with the Society, but, as if
Catholicism itself had been answerable for the crimes of its members, he
abandoned the Romish religion, in which he had hitherto lived, and became
a Protestant.
"'Undeniable proofs, attesting the connivance of two members of the
Company with Ravaillac, a connivance also proved in the case of Jean
Chatel, the regicide, were in my grandfather's possession.
"'This was the first cause of the violent hatred of the Society for our
family. Thank Heaven, these papers have been placed in safety, and if my
last will is executed, will be found marked A. M.C. D. G., in the ebony
casket in the Hall of Mourning, in the house in the Rue Saint-Francois.
"'My father was also exposed to these secret persecutions. His ruin, and
perhaps his death, would have been the consequence, had it not been for
the intervention of an angelic woman, towards whom he felt an almost
religious veneration.
"'The portrait of this woman, whom I saw a few years ago, as well as that
of the man whom I hold in the greatest reverence, were painted by me from
memory, and have been placed in the Red Room in the Rue
Saint-Francois--to be gratefully valued, I hope, by the descendants of my
family.'"
For some moments Gabriel had become more and more attentive to the
reading of this testament. He thought within himself by how strange a
coincidence one of his ancestors had, two centuries before, broken with
the Society of Jesus, as he himself had just done; and that from this
rupture, two centuries old, dated also that species of hatred with which
the Society of Jesus had always pursued his family. Nor did the young
priest find it less strange that this inheritance, transmitted to him
after a lapse of a hundred and fifty years, from one of his kindred (the
victim of the Society of Jesus), should return by a voluntary act to the
coffers of this same society. When the notary read the passage relative
to the two portraits, Gabriel, who, like Father d'Aigrigny, sat with his
back towards the pictures, turned round to look at them. Hardly had the
missionary cast his eyes on the portrait of the woman, than he uttered a
loud cry of surprise, and almost terror. The notary paused in his
reading, and looked uneasily at the young priest.